Small World rules

Each player leads a succession of fantasy Races, each paired with a Special Power. You conquer regions, score Victory coins for the regions you hold, and abandon each Race for a fresh one once it is spread too thin.

The player with the most Victory coins when the Game Turn marker leaves the track wins. Ties are broken by tokens still on the board.

• 14 Races and 20 Special Powers, combined at random into a display of 6 combos.
• Two double-sided boards, one map per player count (2 to 5 players).
• Mountain, Troll's Lair, Fortress, Encampment, Hole, Hero and Dragon markers.
• A Reinforcement die with faces 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 3.

1. Place the map matching the player count and put the Game Turn marker on the first space.
2. Build the combo display, six rows of one Race banner and one Special Power badge.
3. Put a Lost Tribe token on each marked region and a Mountain token on each Mountain region.
4. Give every player 5 Victory coins.

On your turn you either pick a new Race and Power combo (when you have no active Race), take a turn with your active Race, or send your active Race into Decline.

The top row of the display is free. To take a lower row, place one coin on every row above it; any coins already on the row you take are yours to keep. Your tokens in hand equal the Race banner number plus the Power badge number.

• At the very start of your turn you may return your own tokens from any regions you choose to your hand.

Your first conquest with a Race must be on a region at the edge of the map. Later conquests must be on a region adjacent to one you already occupy. Flying, Seafaring and Underworld change this.

The cost to conquer a region is 2 tokens, plus 1 for each enemy token in it, each Lost Tribe token, each Mountain token, and each Fortress, Encampment, Troll's Lair or Hole marker.

• You always need at least 2 tokens for a region, or 1 if a Power or Race discount applies.
• You cannot attack a region you already occupy, a Sea or Lake, an immune region, or a player you are at peace with.
• The defender loses 1 token for good; any other tokens return to their owner to redeploy next turn. Elves lose no tokens at all.

Once per turn, after your conquests, you may make one last attempt on a region you are 3 or fewer tokens short of taking. Roll the die and add the result to the tokens you commit.

Succeed and you conquer the region; fail and the tokens return to your hand. Either way your conquest phase ends.

Spread all of your tokens in hand across the regions you occupy, at least one per region. Extra tokens beyond the first add defensive strength.

• Amazons return their 4 bonus tokens now.
• Skeletons take 1 token from storage for every 2 non-empty regions they conquered this turn.

Instead of a normal turn, flip your Race and its tokens to the In-Decline side and discard the Power badge. Leave one token per region and return the rest to the box. You make no conquests on a Decline turn.

You may have only one In-Decline Race at a time, unless you have the Spirit power. In-Decline regions still score one coin each and still cost attackers extra per token.

• Ghouls do not flip and keep conquering while In Decline.
• Stout may decline at the end of a turn on which it conquered.

At the end of every turn take 1 Victory coin per region you occupy, active or In-Decline, plus any Race or Power bonus coins.

The game lasts 10 turns with 2 or 3 players, 9 turns with 4 players, and 8 turns with 5 players. The highest coin total wins.